Chapter 11

Red and Blistered from Head to Foot

Although the Army of the West returned safely to Springfield late in the afternoon of August 5, its fruitless trek through the Ozark hills seems to have had a lasting negative impact on the commander of the Federal forces. Nathaniel Lyon had once been a man of restless energy. Possessing self-confidence bordering on megalomania, he never shared his decisions, never appeared to doubt the wisdom of his own actions. Now he was a changed man. Physically exhausted, his behavior suggests that he was nearing collapse from the stress of command. Over the next few days he made decisions only after consulting his top subordinates. But instead of making an intelligent analysis and drawing his own conclusions after the benefit of their advice, he tended to be swayed by the last person with whom he talked. Caught in a dilemma of his own making, his “punitive crusade” threatening to collapse in the face of manpower limitations and logistical shortages, he had few good options. To make matters worse, more bad news was soon at hand.¹

On the evening of August 5 Captain John S. Cavender of the First Missouri made his way through the streets of Springfield to a house on College Street, three blocks west of the town square, where Lyon had his headquarters. Owned by Congressman John S. Phelps, the dwelling was apparently quite small, as Lyon maintained his personal quarters separately—at a private residence on Jefferson Street, several blocks east. Cavender joined a meeting that Lyon had called to determine the army’s course of action. In addition to his ranking officers a number of Springfield’s most prominent pro-Union citizens were present, doubtless fearing their fate should Lyon give up his position in southwestern Missouri. Lyon shared their concern. Part of his mental anguish sprang from the prospect of abandoning those who had remained loyal to the Federal government to the mercy of men he considered unscrupulous traitors.²

Cavender had just returned from an interview with John C. Frémont in St. Louis. His report was not encouraging, for his recent experience indicated that the top commander in Missouri had little interest in Lyon’s operations. Indeed, Frémont had displayed “shocking indifference.” Lyon had dispatched Cavender on July 15, probably hoping that the captain’s verbal report would convey more effectively, than previous correspondence, the army’s accomplishments and needs. Frémont granted Cavender a scant ten-minute interview, instructing him to return at 9:00 P.M. that evening. When Cavender arrived for his appointment, he found Frémont’s headquarters closed for the night. Shortly afterward, he happened to encounter Frémont’s adjutant, Captain John C. Kelton, who informed him that the general had ordered both reinforcements and a paymaster to Springfield, so the men might receive the back pay due to them. Cavender interpreted this as a dismissal, for instead of insisting on details or attempting to obtain a second interview with Frémont he left St. Louis the next morning.³

Lyon feared that Frémont had abandoned him to his fate, nor was he wrong, for although Frémont did send a request to the War Department for two months’ pay for Lyon’s command, neither the paymaster, the money, nor the promised reinforcements ever appeared in Springfield. Indeed, when shortly thereafter a second emissary from Lyon, Dr. Frank Porter, spoke with Frémont, the general informed him that Lyon had already been ordered to retreat and that if he chose to remain in Springfield he must accept the consequences. Because no record of such a direct order has been found, some historians have questioned Frémont’s veracity. In any case, “as far as Frémont was concerned, Lyon was on his own.”⁴

The additional news Cavender brought concerning the larger military picture in the West helps explain why the department commander’s attention was focused elsewhere. On July 27 Brigadier General Gideon Pillow’s 6,000-man Confederate “Army of Liberation” had landed at New Madrid, Missouri, where they were joined by Missouri State Guard troops under Brigadier General M. Jeff Thompson. Four days later Brigadier General William J. Hardee moved into the Missouri bootheel with Confederate forces from northeastern Arkansas. If Southerners were to capture Cairo, Illinois, located at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, the war in the West would tip dramatically in favor of the Confederacy and Missouri’s secession might follow. In response, on August 2 Frémont personally led reinforcements to the threatened point. In fact, compared to Cairo and the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys, southwestern Missouri held little strategic importance for the Union war effort.⁵

Everyone at Lyon’s headquarters realized that the obvious course of action would be a retreat to the closest railhead, at Rolla, where support from St. Louis would be readily available. But when Lyon found his officers as loath as he was to end the campaign without a battle, he decided to stay in Springfield. Indeed, by the time the meeting ended Lyon was once again considering an attack on his enemies. His desire to punish Secessionists was probably the greatest factor in his decision. The general’s adjutant, Major John Schofield, recalled in his memoirs: “Lyon’s personal feeling was so strongly enlisted in the Union cause, its friends were so emphatically his personal friends and its enemies his personal enemies, that he could not take the cool, soldierly view of the situation which should control the actions of the commander of a national army.”⁶

Although Lyon contemplated offensive operations, the army needed rest. A proper defense of Springfield was therefore his immediate concern, He had already taken the most important step toward security earlier that day. During the army’s march back to Springfield on August 5, he established an outpost named Camp Hunter four miles down the Wire Road, southwest of Springfield, on the most likely axis of any enemy movement. Lyon gave command to Major Samuel Sturgis, the senior Regular Army officer present, entrusting him with almost a third of the army, between 2,000 and 2,500 men. The site was linked telegraphically with Lyon’s headquarters, probably by using borrowed civilian equipment and telegraphers, as there is no record of Lyon having the necessary implements or personnel as part of his command. Lyon’s use of the telegraph for such relatively short-distance communications indicates that he was among the first—perhaps even the first—to understand its potential at the operational level.⁷

The force at Camp Hunter included Du Bois’s Battery, one of the best units in the Army of the West. It was commanded by Lieutenant John Van Deusen Du Bois, whose experiences to date reflected the improvised nature of the Union war effort in the West. A native of New York and an 1851 West Point graduate, he served with the Mounted Rifle Regiment on the frontier but was on leave in the East when the Civil War began. Ordered to Washington, he was assigned to Company I, First U.S. Artillery, then commanded by John Bankhead Magruder, a flamboyant brevet lieutenant colonel known throughout the Regular Army as “Prince John.” Within a short time, Magruder had resigned to join the Confederacy and Du Bois was sent to Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. There he joined Captain Gordon Granger and Lieutenant George O. Sokalski, escorting recruits to Fort Leavenworth. They arrived on June 6, but instead of going farther west, as anticipated, Du Bois found himself commanding a hastily assembled, “rather incomplete” battery of field artillery. The horses that pulled the six guns, their limbers, and caissons were unshod and no forge was available, yet Du Bois had his unit operational in time to join Sturgis’s column when it left to unite with Lyon less than three weeks later. During the march the young lieutenant was caustic and quick to judge his superiors. In both his private journal and letters to his family he poked fun at the volunteers and vented his deep prejudices against German Americans, but he was a highly competent officer, as events later demonstrated.⁸

Although Camp Hunter constituted a blocking force, Lyon also placed guards on all the roads serving Springfield, with outposts in positions ranging from the edge of town up to five miles out. By allowing anyone to enter the town but letting no one leave without a pass, he ensured that information could flow in without restriction while its outward flow would be blocked. This was an obvious precaution, but Lyon had no way of knowing just how effective it was. By denying the enemy crucial information, Lyon’s security arrangements effectively paralyzed his opponents’ operations from August 6 through August 9.⁹

The common soldiers remained unaware of either their commanders’ decisions or their implications as they settled into their camps on the evening of August 5. Eugene Ware of the First Iowa lay down to sleep with satisfaction because he had just managed to steal a new Springfield rifle from one of the Regulars. At 2:00 A.M. on the morning of the sixth the men of his company, the Burlington Zouaves, were awakened and ordered to take up a position a mile south of town on the property of Congressman Phelps. Pickets were sent out an additional one and one-half miles. There were compensations, however, for the disturbance of the mens’ sleep, as darkness gave the ragged Iowans opportunities to further their now well-developed talents for scavenging. A friend brought Ware a badly needed pair of heavy pants. “I rather imagined some secesh family had skipped out and left their stuff in charge of their slaves, but I did not find out,” he recalled. The well water was excellent at the Phelps farm and a wagonload of fresh bread arrived in the morning.¹⁰

Ware had a full stomach because supplies reached Springfield from Rolla on the morning of August 6, allowing the men to go back on full rations for the first time in two weeks. Morale rose considerably throughout the army, for in addition to bread the wagon train carried a quantity of hats, badly needed shoes, and some clothing.¹¹

The improved supply situation also increased Lyon’s confidence and strengthened his determination to take the offensive. Sometime during the day civilian spies, whose names and number are unknown, brought Lyon word that some of Ben McCulloch’s Confederates had reached the point where the Wire Road crossed Wilson Creek. Lyon decided to make a surprise attack on their camp that night. It is unclear how many of the enemy Lyon thought were at Wilson Creek. Indeed, few details of his plan have survived and accounts of what took place that day are sketchy and confused. Even the number of troops delegated for this night assault is uncertain, but it may have involved up to half of the Federal army. The fact that Lyon did not contemplate utilizing his entire force indicates that he believed Price’s Missouri State Guard was still west of Springfield and had not made a junction with McCulloch. It also suggests that he thought only a portion of McCulloch’s force was at the creek.¹²

The troops at Camp Hunter received word of Lyon’s intentions via telegraph, and their order of march was determined at a conference in Du Bois’s tent. The time of departure was set at 6:00 P.M. A problem developed, however, when Lyon obtained a report from Captain Job B. Stockton, commanding the Leavenworth Fencibles of the First Kansas Infantry. Stockton’s company and two companies of mounted Home Guards had skirmished with some of Sterling Price’s cavalry west of town on Grand Prairie. Lyon responded by dispatching two companies to reinforce Stockton. These men saw no action, as the Southerners had already withdrawn after their initial brief exchange of fire, but Lyon could not be certain that no other threat would come from Grand Prairie. There were no significant fortifications in Springfield, only barricades across the main streets. The force he was planning to leave there while he advanced against McCulloch would be terribly vulnerable should Price suddenly appear west of the town. Unable to decide whether to pursue the night attack or abandon it in favor of a concentration in Springfield, Lyon delayed the projected movement until 10:00 P.M., apparently hoping to obtain more information from his scouts. Though the change in timing meant a late start, he would still be able to assemble his attack column at Camp Hunter by midnight and reach Wilson Creek before dawn. At Camp Hunter, Sturgis completed his preparations and sent Captain Frederick Steele’s battalion of Regulars and Du Bois’s Battery a short distance down the Wire Road just as darkness fell. Their assignment was to locate and drive in the enemy’s pickets once the attack began.¹³

The prospect of action was probably very pleasant for Eugene A. Carr, whom Lyon released from arrest and returned to duty because in the current crisis the army needed “the services of every officer of the command.” Carr, a captain in the First U.S. Cavalry, was an 1850 West Point graduate with eleven years of service and an excellent record. The specifics of his case are unknown. Lyon obviously believed that he could ill afford to lose Carr’s expertise, yet he made no compromise in his standards of strict discipline. The order that returned Carr to his company also stated that “the subject matter of the charge against Capt. Carr will be investigated at a future time.”¹⁴

No further details of the incident are known, but Carr’s troubles are not the only mystery of August 6. In fact, the events of that night have never been adequately explained. Distracted either by the details of preparation or the need to evaluate information arriving from “a stream of visitors, messengers, and communications,” Lyon did not leave Springfield until midnight. He was accompanied by Major Peter J. Osterhaus’s small Second Missouri battalion, elements of the Second Kansas, and eight companies of the First Kansas. When they marched into Camp Hunter at 2:00 A.M. on the morning of August 7, two hours late, a dawn attack remained possible but only if the entire force left immediately. Yet Lyon not only gave no orders, he completely lost track of the time. Though he may have hoped to hear from spies sent to scout the Confederate camp, fatigue bordering on torpor seems to have been part of the problem. When Lyon finally glanced at his watch it was 3:00 A.M. The Federals no longer had time to march the remaining six miles to Wilson Creek and deploy before dawn. Uncertain of what to do, Lyon called a council of his principal officers. On their recommendation, he abandoned Camp Hunter and started the whole force back to Springfield.¹⁵

Although the Federals clearly missed an opportunity, its significance is difficult to evaluate. When on August 6 Lyon had first obtained word of the enemy’s presence at Wilson Creek, the only Southerners there were 800-odd men of Colonel Elkanah Greer’s regiment, plus Captain Rieff’s company. The rest of the Southern army was still en route. About 9,000 soldiers were only two miles away at Moody’s Springs, with orders to move up to Wilson Creek on the sixth. By the end of that day, nearly all of the Southern army had established camp along the stream. One can only speculate as to the result had Lyon attacked on the night of August 6 or during the early hours of August 7. The whole Southern force might have panicked in the dark, replicating “Rains’s Scare” on a giant scale. On the other hand, this time Lyon’s men would have faced a united Southern command, and the Federals could have been the ones routed.¹⁶

Regardless of what the canceled attack might have achieved, during the return to Springfield Adjutant Schofield received a shocking insight into his commander’s confused mental state. Lyon spoke of receiving “a premonition that a night attack would prove disastrous” and confessed that he had proceeded only because surprise seemed to offer their sole chance for success. Another night attack, he thought, might still be the best plan. The major’s reaction can be imagined, as he had witnessed astonishing changes in Lyon during the months since their initial association in St. Louis. Then Lyon had been convinced that he was God’s instrument for the punishment of traitors, but he performed his duties with extreme professionalism. Now prey to imagined portents, the once fiercely independent Connecticut Yankee had virtually abandoned command of the army. All important decisions were presently made in council, with Lyon acting merely as an executive officer and a weak one at that. Although Schofield made only muted criticism of Lyon in the memoirs he wrote long after the war, there is contemporary evidence that he was acutely aware of Lyon’s shortcomings. A letter he received on August 6 from James Totten suggests that the two men had already noted and discussed the obvious weaknesses of Lyon’s tactical dispositions. From Camp Hunter the artillery captain had written Schofield that the position was “certainly not very well adapted for defence against our enemy and he may push his forces in between this and town and occupy the strong position of which you spoke yesterday. We are too far from town to aid in its defence if the enemy attacks in any other direction than the line on which this force now is.”¹⁷

Schofield may also have been aware of growing discontent in the Union ranks. The First Iowa provides examples. Although the regiment was not slated to be part of the attack force, little happened during August 6 to calm the mens’ growing anxiety. In the Governor’s Grays, Horace Poole noted that “from reports we are in a very tight place. The rebel force reported to be in large numbers and within a few miles of town. A hard fight and perhaps a retreat is expected.” Others worried as well. “We no [sic] not at what moment we may be ordered to leave,” wrote William Branson of the Muscatine Volunteers. “An order has been issued by General Lyon to have a roll call every two hours.” The regiment shifted its position twice during the day, for reasons unclear to the men, and the soldiers remained in line of battle the whole time. Forbidden to break ranks but allowed to lie down, they suffered for hour after hour under the blazing sun. As a result, the regiment very nearly mutinied.¹⁸

Although the Iowans had initially held Lyon in great esteem, they now remained with the Army of the West primarily to maintain their corporate honor, for they were in the midst of a dispute over the terms of their enlistment. Dating their ninety days of service from their initial enrollment in the Iowa state militia, they believed that their term had already expired. Yet they had seen how the departure of other volunteers compromised the safety of the army, and, as action seemed imminent, the regiment voted to remain in Springfield. “We felt we should not spoil a fight if there was a show of one; we did not want to take the responsibility of a retreat and did not want to march off to the sound of booming cannon in our rear,” Eugene Ware explained. They found, however, that Lyon (like other Union commanders) calculated all volunteers’ enlistments from the date of their entry into Federal service, which meant that the Iowans had another week to go before they were free. They also credited a false rumor that Lyon had sworn to keep them under arms indefinitely. “Hence we did not like Lyon, and wanted to have the thing ended and over with,” Ware wrote. Yet in this crisis corporate honor prevailed, as they “did not dare to go home and have any question pending as to our services, or the military propriety of our acts.”¹⁹

Morale problems in the Army of the West should not be exaggerated, however. For despite their poor physical condition and the odds facing them, most Union soldiers appear to have been both eager for battle and assured of success. When Lieutenant Levant L. Jones of the Scott’s Guards, First Kansas, wrote to his wife Hattie in Olathe, he predicted a “great battle” on the seventh “unless the enemy backs out.” Even though he estimated that the Confederates had 15,000 soldiers and the Federals only 8,000, they were “all confident of victory.” Possibly to quell any fears this may have generated in Hattie, the young lieutenant added: “But ours are drilled, disciplined, and well armed, while the Rebels are, in the main, just the reverse of this. We are in a good position for defense while they must attack, and will be terribly torn up by our batteries.”²⁰

Jones then turned to more personal matters. If he was to die, he wanted her to have his “last words and thoughts”:

With soldiers such as Jones to rely on, the Union cause in Missouri did not look nearly so dark. But Jones and his comrades spent August 7 in pointless activities, their combat readiness further depleted by Lyon’s inability to determine the enemy’s intentions or formulate a plan of his own to counter them. For if the patrols and scouts sent out by McCulloch failed to garner the information about the Federals he desired, they had the effect of keeping Lyon in the dark about the Southerners. Schofield recalled that “our troops were kept upon their arms during the day.” Continual reports from area residents and local Home Guards warned that the enemy was advancing. Around noon members of a scouting party thought they saw a large column of infantry and artillery approaching via the Little York Road, west of Springfield. In response Lyon ordered a detachment of Regulars, Kansans, and two guns from Backof’s Missouri Light Artillery to meet the enemy. As it turned out, the size of the Southern force “proved in the main false” and presented no threat to the Federals. The Southerners soon fled and the Union column returned to camp, having made a forced march of about nine miles in the sweltering midday heat. There was some skirmishing between mounted patrols, but no significant combat occurred. Instead, the constant state of alert and the heat of an unforgiving August sun continued to take their toll on the men.²²

As one of the Iowans kept “in readiness to move at ten minutes warning,” William Branson was in a position to witness the growing concern of Springfield’s civilian population. He recorded in his diary that everything was “in an uproar.” The townsfolk were “leaving their homes & moving into or near the army for protection.” The civilians had reason for concern, for when Lyon called a meeting of his officers that evening the evacuation of Springfield and abandonment of southwestern Missouri was the primary topic of discussion. Lyon favored standing his ground, but most of his officers argued for retreat, either to Rolla or perhaps Fort Scott on the Kansas border. Lyon would almost certainly have given in to the majority opinion, as he had in previous meetings, were it not for Captain Thomas Sweeny. Angered by the talk of retreat, the Irishman—his “naturally florid face flushed to livid red, and waving his one arm with excitement”—began a fierce tirade, arguing against withdrawal before fighting the enemy. Retreat without battle would not only raise the morale of the enemy, it would crush the spirit of the local Union populace and leave it prey to terror, harassment, and persecution. Sweeny favored attacking the Confederates as soon as an opportunity presented itself. “Let us eat the last bit of mule flesh and fire the last cartridge before we think of retreat!” he concluded. The captain’s impassioned oration swayed so many officers that at midnight the meeting ended in consensus. They would wait to see how the situation unfolded and fall back only if forced to do so by either the nearby Confederates or the still unlocated Missouri State Guard. The conference seemed to instill new confidence in Lyon, for the next day, August 8, when Major Alexis Mudd asked when the army would retreat, the general responded without hesitation, “Not until we are whipped out.”²³

For the men of First Iowa’s Governor’s Grays, Thursday, August 8, began with reveille at 3:30 A.M. At 5:00 A.M. they took over picket duty from the Muscatine Volunteers and Burlington Zouaves, who had spent a quiet night. Mundane routines such as this were interrupted when, about 8:00 A.M., a courier arrived at Lyon’s headquarters with a message from Captain Carr. From his outpost on Grand Prairie west of town, Carr reported that an enemy force 20,000 strong was within two miles of the Union position and advancing. Immediately, the entire army was placed under arms. As a contingency, baggage wagons were loaded and moved to a central location in town. To keep them out of enemy hands, the funds of the Springfield branch of the State Bank of Missouri were also placed in a wagon. Meanwhile, groups of anxious civilians gathered nearby, preparing to evacuate to Rolla if Lyon failed to hold Springfield. Yet the day proved to be anticlimactic for the Federals. Lyon sent Sturgis with 1,500 men to reinforce Carr and orders to bring on a general engagement. But like so many other reports of the enemy’s activity, this one also proved false. Skirmishing continued between mounted scouts, but the Army of the West spent another day under arms in the broiling sun, waiting for a foe that never appeared. Sturgis’s column returned to town at dark.²⁴

At the inevitable officers’ meeting that evening Lyon outlined their present situation. Confronted by McCulloch and still uncertain of Price’s location, they also faced the danger of being cut off from St. Louis by the Confederates, under Hardee, said to be advancing from southeastern Missouri. As supplies were running short and no prospect of reinforcement existed, retreat seemed the only alternative. Yet how could it be done safely? “Shall we,” Lyon reportedly asked, “endeavor to retreat without giving the enemy battle beforehand and run the risk of having to fight every inch along our line of retreat? Or shall we attack him in his position and endeavor to hurt him so that he cannot follow?” Lyon favored the latter option. He proposed to leave only a small guard in Springfield, march down the Wire Road, throw the whole army against the enemy, “and endeavor to rout him before he recovers from his surprise.” Colonel Franz Sigel suggested a significant modification. He recommended that the army be divided into two columns, commanded by himself and Lyon, respectively, that would strike the enemy simultaneously from different directions.²⁵

Lyon’s desire to attack that very night was apparently the product of his natural aggressiveness and his desire to bring traitors to account. Indeed, he “would not retire without punishing the Secessionists, and that conviction was so all-consuming that he cast to the wind all sound military judgement.” But the Federal commander had not completely lost touch with the practical details of military operations. As all of the officers were opposed to Sigel’s plan, Lyon rejected it. He also paid attention to objections raised by the colonels of the regiments that had marched to Grand Prairie and back in response to Carr’s false alarm. Their men had trudged some sixteen miles but had yet to be fed. Lyon therefore sensibly agreed to postpone the attack for twenty-four hours. The army would march on the night of August 9.²⁶

Early on the morning of Friday, August 9, a message arrived from Frémont. Dated August 6, it is the last correspondence Lyon received from his commanding officer prior to the Battle of Wilson’s Creek. Regrettably, the original has been lost. This may have been the communication Frémont mentioned to Dr. Porter, but Schofield, who handled Lyon’s correspondence, asserted that Lyon never received a direct order to retreat. According to Schofield, Frémont simply wrote that “if Lyon was not strong enough to maintain his position as far in advance as Springfield, he should fall back toward Rolla until reinforcements should meet him.”²⁷ Although Frémont did not specifically order Springfield to be abandoned, it was clear that any action that might occur there would be Lyon’s responsibility and his alone.

Never moderate in his reactions, Lyon threw the communication onto his headquarters table, clapped his hands together, and exclaimed, “God damn General Frémont! He is a worse enemy to me and the Union cause than Price and McCulloch and the whole damned tribe of rebels in this part of the State!”²⁸ He then directed Schofield to draft a response, which included an assessment of his situation:

Lyon’s missive was soon on its way to St. Louis by courier. Interestingly, it contained no hint that the Army of the West was planning to attack the enemy that night. Perhaps Lyon had once again lost his will. If so, Sigel restored it when he visited headquarters at 9:00 A.M. During a long private conversation Sigel proposed a substantial modification of the attack plan, arguing again for a two-column attack that would give a greater role to the volunteer regiments of German Americans from St. Louis who regarded him as their patron. Lyon acquiesced but told no one of the changes at that time.³⁰

Sometime after his talk with Sigel, Lyon received a message from Captain David S. Stanley, commanding Company C, First U.S. Cavalry, reporting yet another skirmish on Grand Prairie. This one had significant consequences. Captain Samuel N. Wood’s Kansas Rangers killed two Southerners and captured six, who identified themselves as members of a foraging party from the Missouri State Guard. It is likely that they also told their captors that the State Guard was now united with McCulloch’s Confederates and Arkansas State Troops at Wilson Creek. For instead of sending reinforcements toward Grand Prairie, as he had in response to previous alarms, Lyon ordered a reconnaissance south along the Wire Road. The task fell to Captain G. Harry Stone’s Company C of the First Missouri Infantry and fifteen troopers from Company C of the Second U.S. Dragoons. The patrol moved down the road about four miles, probably in the vicinity of the advance guard’s abandoned Camp Hunter. Here the infantry halted, while Stone and the dragoons continued for another mile. As they approached a house, they witnessed several of the enemy mount their horses and race away. From the home owner they learned that at least two of the soldiers were Texans. The patrol then returned to Springfield, and Captain Stone reported his findings to army headquarters.³¹

As a result of the Grand Prairie skirmish, Stone’s reconnaissance, and (according to one source) spies planted in the Southern forces, Lyon became convinced that his enemies were united ten miles southwest of Springfield. In one way this was a relief, as he had feared that the State Guard might have moved around his right flank, cutting him off from Rolla while the Confederates attacked from the south. On the other hand, if the attack slated to begin that evening took place as scheduled, it would pit the 5,000-odd men of the Army of the West against an enemy thought to be 20,000 strong. To assess the new situation and to inform his command of the changes he had made in his plans to accommodate Sigel, Lyon called an officers’ meeting for 4:00 P.M.³²

Meanwhile, the enlisted men of the Army of the West passed the day of August 9 with minimal knowledge of the building crisis. Soldiers needing shoes had them issued from the supply train that had arrived several days earlier. A light rain fell in the morning, “but not enough to lay the dust.” Then, that afternoon, a heavy thunderstorm passed through, providing at least temporary relief from the sun. As the army’s tentage had been packed away in supply wagons, the majority of the men were at the mercy of the elements.³³

Levant Jones passed the time by writing once again to his wife Hattie. The lieutenant made no reference to the planned attack; subalterns of the First Kansas were probably as curious as those in the ranks about the army’s future. Jones was clearly impatient, informing Hattie that if the campaign was not over by October he would resign his commission “and come back to you, to home and to business.” He missed his wife terribly, confessing, “I sometimes lie awake thinking of you and . . . wish I was with you instead of out here soldiering and lying all on the bare ground.” But after two months of active campaigning Jones had not only adjusted to soldier life, he sounded like a veteran, boasting: “I have not slept in a tent for eleven nights, as we have our wagons loaded and always ready to start at once. I can now spread down my India Rubber Blanket under a tree and spreading my blanket over me sleep as sound as ever I did.” Though Jones wrote that his health was excellent, he did “suffer greatly from the heat,” confiding that “I am red and blistered from head to foot.”³⁴

As he closed, Jones’s thoughts turned to duty, honor, family, God, and country:

Like thousands of other Americans, North and South, Jones was coming of age, beginning to perceive, if dimly, the tremendous sacrifices that his generation would be called upon to make before peace returned to the troubled land.

When Lyon opened his council of war late that afternoon, he must have shared with his subordinates the news that McCulloch and Price were definitely united. This apparently troubled no one, as there were no recommendations that the attack be called off. Lyon then gave the floor to Sigel, allowing him to repeat the proposal he had made privately that morning. The plan as it stood was to attack straight down the Wire Road and drive the enemy away from it, thus cutting its line of supply and communication. Sigel wanted instead to divide the army. He himself would lead a column of infantry, cavalry, and artillery—some 1,200 men—on a circuitous march to a position overlooking the rear of the Southerners’ camp. Lyon and the remainder of the men would move by road to the west, then turn south and march across the prairie. Instead of striking the enemy along the Wire Road, where contact might be expected, Lyon’s column would attack from due north. Objections were instantly voiced by the other officers at the meeting. Sigel’s proposal to attack from the open prairie rather than the road had great merit, as it would increase the element of surprise which was key to Lyon’s original plan. But a division of the Army of the West in the face of superior enemy forces violated accepted military axioms, whether taught at West Point or the Karlsruhe Academy. Sigel’s column would be too small to be effective. The distance traveled would necessitate a long march, so the men would be fatigued on arrival. Because communication could not be maintained between the two columns, initiating simultaneous attack would be nearly impossible.³⁶

Lyon overrode all objections, accepted Sigel’s plan, and set the time of march for 6:00 P.M. that evening. Given his previous lassitude and reliance on consensus, such behavior seems odd and historians have debated Lyon’s reasons for accepting Sigel’s plan. Lieutenant Du Bois’s wartime journal offers the only known clue. He wrote: “Lyon said, ‘Frémont won’t sustain me. Sigel has a great reputation & if I fail against his advise it will give Sigel command & ruin me. Then again, unless he can have his own way, I fear he will not carry out my plans.’ The result of all this was, Sigel had his way.”³⁷ Perhaps, pressured by Sigel’s ambitions, Lyon felt that he had no choice, or perhaps he was continuing to abdicate responsibility, placing the fate of the army in another’s hands.

Du Bois does not state when, where, or to whom Lyon made his rueful remarks. The lieutenant was highly prejudiced against German Americans such as Sigel, and he recorded Lyon’s alleged words not on August 9 but on August 30, more than two weeks after the battle when great controversy surrounded Sigel’s performance. As there is no other evidence of Sigel pressuring Lyon, or even a hint of rivalry between them, one is tempted to dismiss Du Bois’s comments. After all, Lyon had launched his campaign without waiting for authorization from Washington. He had destroyed the legal government of a state that had not left the Union and was currently battling that state’s legal militia, the Missouri State Guard. If Sigel tried to force his will on Lyon, as Du Bois’s journal entry indicates, would not Lyon have removed Sigel from command rather than compromise his self-ordained crusade?

Schofield recalled no friction between Lyon and Sigel, writing in his memoirs that Lyon had “great confidence in Sigel’s superior military ability and experience” and “seemed to have no hesitation” in accepting his ideas.³⁸ Why not? The original plan was designed to stun the enemy and allow the Federals to escape safely to Rolla. Sigel’s plan was more ambitious. With it the enemy might actually be defeated, not merely paralyzed. By accepting a scheme that would induce maximum pain and suffering on the enemy, Lyon was returning to the real focus of his “punitive crusade.”

After the meeting was adjourned, Lyon returned to his personal quarters on North Jefferson Street. He soon had two visitors, Captain Sweeny and Florence M. Cornyn, surgeon of the First Missouri Infantry. Sweeny had not been present at the officers’ meeting. He and the doctor tried to persuade Lyon to revert to the original plan. Lyon considered their arguments but refused to change his mind. He then retired to catch a few moments’ rest. Outside, in the dusty streets of Springfield and the sunbaked camps surrounding it, the Army of the West prepared for the most important march in its brief, tumultuous history.³⁹